


Turn around

by Taabe



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 21:26:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7480755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taabe/pseuds/Taabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is for Bitty. Music for 3 a.m. when you can't keep reading your Twitter feed. </p>
<p>With warm thanks to Ngozi Ukazu for writing people who talk and hold on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn around

Turn around

How did I get here? Texting you tonight  
geese flying over and I’m sitting on the roof,  
a thousand lights are on in thousand windows  
and no one here knows who I am but you.

I stare at my phone with a familiar ache  
like the summer I won gold, before I lost it all  
and even when I danced like the sun on the lake  
the crowd’s eyes stripped me like they wanted me to fall.

_Turn around_

Got to see what’s coming  
— balance loss and doubt  
when people who don’t know you  
would leave you bleeding out  
and the ones you thought you knew  
can’t see you in the shade  
_Turn around_  
I’ve always been afraid.

You saw me crumpled like a sweat-stained jersey  
saw me fall on the ice and got me up again  
coming at me in the dark on a cold fall morning  
my captain, my brother, my best friend —

You’re skimming at my back, put a hand on my shoulder  
and we’re skating on sunlight, see it rise,  
we’re laughing with a kick like a cup of coffee  
and I thought it was enough — until you held my eyes

_Turn around_

I didn’t see you coming.  
Touch me. Make it real.  
I never thought you’d see me  
— I never thought you’d feel  
the heat in my body  
like a Georgia summer day.  
_Turn around_  
God, don’t look away.

_I’m peeling the apples_  
_we picked on Sunday._  
_The barn smelled like cider._  
_We could hear the sea._  
_Your hands on my back,_  
_we’re breathing together_  
_the core in my fingers_  
_and a pulse beating free._

_You taste juice on my palm_  
_in the one place I belong_  
_and city sounds wash over_  
_like breakers on the sand._  
_When did this become something_  
_I’d be willing to die for —_  
_What kind of world_  
_would make me take that stand?_

I touch you in the dark on a bare new morning  
a gash on your shoulder and tape on your chin  
and I’m floating on your voice but I can’t shake the warning  
— double exposure imprinted on my skin

and everything is changing. I’m lifting like an axel  
flying on instinct like a hand to a ball  
but you’re with me, you’re around me and all that matters  
you’re running in my blood and I won’t let you fall

_Turn around_

We don’t know what’s coming  
we’re lying here awake  
you know my hands are cold  
and you feel my body shake.  
I swear the center’s gonna hold  
until we come into the light  
_Turn around_  
I’ll hold you tonight

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this thinking of two dear friends. In the wake of Orlando and other recent events, I am left thinking forcefully of people who have been made to feel afraid. And of how often people face anger, online and off. I wanted to give warmth instead, friendship, intelligent response, and to listen well. And I thought of Bitty in Georgia ... and began writing this song. It doesn't have music yet, because I'm not a composer, but I still hear it in my head.


End file.
